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Retro inspired FPS Strafe recently surpassed its Kickstarter stretch goal of $186,096 with around 24 hours to go, raising a final figure of $207,847.

Developed by Pixel Titans, the game holds the rather lofty claim of being “ the fastest, bloodiest, deadliest, most adjective-abusing, action-packed first-person shooter of 1996.” Not only this, but they created an over the top live action trailer to really nail the point home. Parodying the gory retro shooters of yore. This is Pixel Titans first major project but it seems to have generated a fair amount of interest, with big name youtubers such as the Superbestfriends releasing a gameplay video of an early dev build.

Aside from the marketing aspect, the game itself appears to have succeeded at mimicking the all out, unpretentious, run and gun gameplay in which you have to dodge projectiles and hoards of cannon fodder enemies at all times whilst trying to rack up kills. All this is accompanied with a solid, in your face soundtrack that gets the adrenaline pumping as you zoom from room to room covering the walls with blood and generic Nickelodeon slime. Its the type of game you would minimize as soon as your mum walks in the room.

Strafe is clearly drawing inspiration from games like Quake and System Shock to an almost ridiculous degree. It relishes in the 90s PC nostalgia. So much so that they have a wonderful Space Jam inspired website Strafe1996.com complete with comic sans, flashing text and 3 frame skull gifs.

There most recent kickstarter update introduced a playable demo so you can take a look at what the game has to offer. However, the demo is, by the developers own admission, in a ‘pre-alpha’ state, lacking various mechanics and with a few bugs. The Demo offers a short run through of the ‘speed run zone’ in which the developers challenge you to “beat the streamers speed-run times”. The ludicrous movement speed, overpowered weapons, dismemberment and the blood spraying the walls is all there in its stupid 90s glory. You can still back the project if you missed out on the Kickstarter and feel like pitching in.

What do you think of Strafe? Did you back the project? Let us know in the comments.

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